Friday, 10 June 2011

A classic summer tradition is ice-cream, whether it's eaten plain in a cone or as an elaborate sundae so this week's design idea draws inspiration from the yummy colours of these cool tasty treats.

How about a scoop of rich vanilla bean ice cream (soy of course) drizzled with thick ribbons of caramel sauce to start with? Indulge without the calories with BeadsByStephanie's focal lentil. Wire the focal with some copper wire, then hang the provided acccent beads from the bottom from large to small to make a trail of 'ice cream' drips for a real statement pendant!

Midgetgembead's delicious creamy beads continue the theme, so link a few of these hot caramel drenched delights with some more copper wire:

And of course, no ice-cream is complete without a sprinkling of nuts and hundreds & thousands, so link a few of these crunchy looking, cream beads from helbels in between your other beads:

And for a bit of pizazz, the cherry on top: sals25 has come up with some cute sweetie style beads, and the red ones would make a lovely pair of cherry inspired earrings, whilst the yellow and orange beads can be used as spacers in the necklace to represent Smarties or M&Ms, and pick up the colours in the beads above:

Friday, 3 June 2011

Summer means a trip to the seaside for many people (which is followed by 2 hours hiding from the rain under brightly coloured shop awnings if you're British), so this week's idea is a bracelet and necklace set with a nautical theme.

Taking this absolutely adorable sailor girl focal from Sals25 as a starting point, we get a colour scheme of deep blue and white, classic nautical colours:

Use wrapped loops to hang her from the main necklace chain of wired-up beads, and add one of Pandanimal's frosted glass beads at the bottom of a dangle, to resemble beautifully tumbled sea glass:

To match the deep blue transparent and crisp white glass in the sailor girl's outfit, these beads by RedsBeads echo the colours, whilst the trails of organic silver and ivory around the beads are reminiscent of rocky shoals, and pebbled beaches where the little sailor girl wanders. Wire wrap a few of these beads with silver wire; using the tail of wrapped loops to make small spirals of wire, and gently pressing these flat against the beads will mimic curling waves:

Now for the bracelet, a simple strung creation would be fabulous for featuring JustDesireJewellery's iridescent shell bead. This shimmering focal holds the colours of the sea inside, and seems to catch the light in subtle waves:

And to make up the rest of the bracelet, try threading these oyster shell shaped white buttons by LushLampwork onto your stringing material:

And intersperse them with FiBead's luscious deep blue spacer beads. Meanwhile, the rest of the frosted and silver dotted beads would look lovely used to lengthen the necklace: